


So Close

by thekindmagic



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: (I love that tag a lot??), Angsty Schmoop, First Kiss, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 08:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9226205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thekindmagic/pseuds/thekindmagic
Summary: In which these boys wait until pretty much the last possible moment to deal with their feelings...





	

**Author's Note:**

> From a Tumblr prompt that I kind of... ran away with?? (Seriously, the prompt was just "green," how did this happen)  
> Set in The World of Ruin, sometime between Noctis getting to Hammerhead and everybody going back to Insomnia...  
> (Title from a song again - John McLaughlin's)

“Iggy? You… I don’t know. You look like something’s up.”

“There _is_ something- Well, I imagine you may know already. Or suspect, at least. Nonetheless…” Ignis shakes his head, starts over. “Regrets are dangerous things, particularly with the stakes so high, and I can’t afford to be preoccupied.”

“You’re _preoccupied_ , huh?” Noctis’s heart is racing. “Something about me?”

Ignis has the air of a man on trial. “Yes.”

A few seconds of silence.

“Ignis, I-”

“I love you,” Ignis says, run together like a single word. “In the romantic sense, I mean. I’m _in love_ with you, I have been for a very long time. But that isn’t- I need you to understand how much you-” He shuts his eyes and winces. “I don’t know what to say,” he murmurs, sounding faintly desperate.

Noctis touches Ignis’s arm, and his eyes open reflexively.

“What,” Noctis says, far more steady than he feels. “No poetry?”

Ignis swallows, anxious. “I didn’t think you cared for it.”

“I don’t.” Noctis moves his hand to Ignis’s cheek, the one with the ragged scar.

“…Noct?”

Noctis is supposed to be thirty years old, a grown man, the chosen one with the power of gods in his blood. In a lot of ways though, he’s still never had the chance to be anything but a dumb twenty year-old kid.

Somehow, Ignis bridges that divide for him.

With both the divine steadiness of kings and a certain idiotic recklessness, Noctis finally asks, “can I kiss you?”

Ignis doesn’t quite manage a word in response: just a slightly strangled, “ _oh_.”

Noctis immediately pulls away, concerned. “Was that… not what you had in mind?”

“I didn’t have _anything_ in mind.”

That’s hard to believe. “You always have a plan.”

“Not always.”

“Well, this time I do. If you want.”

Ignis takes a deep breath. “Yes,” he says quietly. “Alright.”

“Okay.” Noctis steps in closer. He carefully removes Ignis’s glasses, and then not so carefully fumbles for a pocket to put them in.

Ignis blinks rapidly, self-conscious; only his right eye opens fully like it used to. Noctis can still see hints of green behind the clouded lenses, and it’s heartbreaking, just like he remembers: if ten years of pain and darkness couldn’t mar the color, he doubts anything could. He wonders whether anyone in the last ten years has been this close, has bothered to reassure Ignis how ridiculously lovely he is.

Ignis’s face is warm, and Noctis wonders if works the other way, if his hand feels cold. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits, feeling distinctly un-kingly.

Ignis’s smile is small, barely visible, but Noctis can feel the movement under his palm. “Like all your other plans, then?”

“Shut up.”

Ignis’s hands come up to rest on Noctis’s back, pulling him in close until their chests are pressed together. Carefully, Ignis leans his head down, finding Noctis’s forehead with his own. “This is all the help I can give, I’m afraid,” he says softly. “My aim might leave something to be desired.”

It feels good to be this close, like they’re hidden together, too small a target for anything bad to find them. Ignis’s hands run slowly up and down Noctis’s back, gentle and sure. Noctis traces over the edge of Ignis’s scar with his thumb. He’s always been so beautiful.

“Love you,” Noctis whispers. He watches from inches away as Ignis’s face tightens with emotion, eyes closing against the threat of tears.

“ _Noct_.”

Noctis still doesn’t know what he’s doing, but suddenly he doesn’t care. He knows Ignis won’t either, never did, has only ever wanted to be with him, to stay near. All that time ago, sneaking out past the guards, Ignis reciting constellations like poetry… That was how it started. But if this is the end, they can damn well manage without the stars.

Noctis shuts his eyes and breathes their mouths together, clumsy and unrefined and everything Ignis has to expect from him by now. Ignis meets the kiss with far more delicacy, but there’s a desperation to the way he grips at Noctis’s back, squeezing him in closer.

Noctis slides trembling fingers up into Ignis’s hair, smoothing it back from his face. “Love you,” he says again, their lips brushing with it. “So much- God, Iggy- _Thank you_ -”

Ignis is clinging to him, pulling at the fabric of his shirt like a lifeline. They manage one more kiss, longer, trying to press the shapes of unspoken words into each other’s mouths. Then Ignis draws away, unable to keep himself from crying.

“Apologies,” he starts, fairly choking back the tears, but Noctis finds himself no better off. He buries his face against Ignis’s shoulder, and Ignis holds him tight.

They sob quietly together, shoulders shaking. Ignis presses his face into Noctis’s hair, and Noctis makes a terrible sound against Ignis’s shirt as he struggles to breathe.

“You have a beard,” Ignis murmurs.

Noctis laughs. It’s an awful, hiccoughing sound, and it feels raw as it tears out of his throat. But it’s a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Not much of one, but.”

Ignis runs his fingers through Noctis’s hair, smiling. “I might never have known.”

“Now you do. Guess my plan was pretty good.”

“Indeed.”


End file.
